Back in my day, when we wanted to keep track of our Pokémon across multiple versions, we had to hold onto all of our game cartridges, trading them forward with ourselves. You couldn’t even get Gen II up to Gen III due to data format changes, so all of your Pokémon were just kaput back then. Thanks to the introduction of the Pokémon Bank, and later Pokémon Home, this isn’t a concern any more, and kids these days are luckier for it. Of course, before you breathe your sigh of relief, you should make sure Home is compatible with games going forward. On that note, will Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl be Compatible with Pokémon Home?
Will Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl be Compatible with Pokémon Home?
The good news is that, yes, Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be compatible with Pokémon Home. Any Pokémon you catch in Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl can be uploaded and held in Home, as well as transferred to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s companion release, Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The bad news is that while Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will be compatible with Home, it won’t be right away.
Home support for Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, as well as Legends: Arceus, won’t be available at launch, but rather will be implemented at some later point in 2022. This isn’t as big of a deal for Legends: Arceus, since that game doesn’t come out until January 2022 anyway, but since Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are out this month, you’ll have to wait until at least after Christmas to start transferring Pokémon.
Nintendo also hasn’t quite clarified what the limits of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl’s relationship to Home will be, if there are any. Some Pokémon games only allow one-way transfers to Home, unable to receive any Pokémon back, while other games can’t receive any Pokémon outside of their National Dexes. Presumably, this will be made clear once the service is implemented for both Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Legends: Arceus.
